


Howl

by xzombiexkittenx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bullying, Fluff, M/M, No Spoilers, Potterlock, Sherlock Holmes & Molly Hooper Friendship, Teenlock, abuse of all caps, anon hate, howlers, seriously though fluff, sherlock is a big nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 07:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1156736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xzombiexkittenx/pseuds/xzombiexkittenx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone's figured out how to send anonymous Howlers, for good, and for not-so-good.<br/>For tumblr user <a href="http://practicefortheheart.tumblr.com/">practicefortheheart</a> who asked for potterlock for the Winterlock Exchange.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howl

“WHEN YOU LAUGH IT MAKES EVERYONE AROUND YOU HAPPIER!” the Howler screamed at a very small Slytherin third-year. Her friends high-fived her as the Howler burned to ashes and she laughed. It was pretty excellent, as laughs went.

The book on Sherlock’s lap startled and tried to get away. He rapped it sharply with his knuckles and stuffed it a little further under the table so the teachers couldn’t see him reading in the Great Hall. “I wish whichever cretin came up with this would stop,” he muttered around a mouthful of toast. “It wasn’t amusing the first time.”

John smirked into his juice. “It’s not supposed to be amusing,” he said. “It’s supposed to be nice. Shut up,” he added before Sherlock could launch into a diatribe about niceness. 

And yeah, John thought, it was nice. Some bright spark had come up with the idea of casting a charm on their voice so they couldn’t be identified and started sending anonymous messages of encouragement and general niceness to students. While it might have started with one person John was willing to bet that more than one student was behind it now. The anon voices weren’t always exactly the same, but the general gist of it remained.

A moment later an owl dropped a Howler onto John. “Er,” he said. “Real or?”

Sherlock barely glanced up. “No, it’s fine. Go ahead.”

“EVERYONE APPRECIATES YOU COACHING THE FIRST-YEAR, INTRA-HOUSE QUIDDICH SESSIONS! MOSTLY BECAUSE THAT’S VERY NICE OF YOU BUT ALSO BECAUSE YOU LOOK WELL FIT IN YOUR GYM KIT!” 

John stood up, raised his glass to the Great Hall at large. “You are welcome!” he announced, and sat down to catcalls and wolf-whistles.

Sherlock licked a finger and used it to pick up a bit of ash. He tasted it, much to the disgust of those around him. “Hm,” he said and started picking through the remains of John’s Howler with a little more interest. “I wonder.”

John had, in all honesty, forgotten about the worrisome gleam in Sherlock’s eye until about a month later, when he had a roll of parchment the length of the Great Wall of China dropped into his lap. It was late-ish and the common room was quiet. John curled up in front of the fire trying to figure out where his calculations had gone totally tits up in his arithmancy homework because there was no way the answer he’d got was even remotely right. Sherlock stood over him, arms folded, looking triumphant.

“Do I want to know what this is?” he asked, poking at the scroll with the tip of a finger. Sherlock opened his mouth but John raised a hand to cut him off. “Do I _actually_ want to know what this is?”

“That,” Sherlock said, flinging himself down on one of the common room sofas like a fainting heroine, “is a monograph, the title of which you could easily read yourself.”

John sighed and started to unroll the parchment. It read: _Upon the Distinction between the Ashes of the Various Howlers_

“Jesus, Sherlock,” John said. “Seriously?”

Sherlock steepled his fingers under his chin. “In it I enumerate a hundred and forty forms of Howler, self-destructing pictures, and those tedious ‘anon love’ pseudo-Howlers, with coloured plates illustrating the difference in the ash.”

“Uh huh,” John said. 

“To the trained eye there is as much difference between the black ash of a Howler from Muggle London and the white fluff of intra-Hogwarts immolating post as there is between a cabbage and a potato.”

“Well thank God someone’s finally pointed that out,” John said mildly. 

Sherlock threw a pillow at his head, narrowly missing both John and the fireplace. “It means I could, if asked, probably narrow down the people sending all those annoying letters.”

John sat up properly and wagged the scroll at Sherlock. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t ruin it for everyone. Look, just…I bet one of the professors would love this. I’m not saying it’s going to be the next best seller but if it’s properly written up you could probably publish it.”

The compliment made Sherlock smile. A private, pleased little thing that most people would have missed. John didn’t.

As it turned out, Sherlock didn’t need to ruin it for anyone. Someone else did so the very next morning. 

John was contemplating a second helping of bacon when an owl dropped a Howler into Sherlock’s eggs. “Hey!” John said, punching Sherlock companionably in the shoulder. “Someone sent you…” he trailed off at the look on Sherlock’s face. He had gone pale and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “What?”

Sherlock reached out, shoulders going back as he drew into himself. Taller, straighter, but somehow a little less. He flicked the seal on the letter open and waited.

“NO ONE LIKES YOU!” the Howler screamed, and John cringed a little as the entire hall went silent. “YOUR DISGUSTING. JUST KILL YOURSELF!”

The Howler immolated into a sad little pile of ash. One out of a hundred and forty, John thought.

“Well,” Sherlock said tightly. “On one hand, I doubt these will be allowed any more. On the other hand the fact that this sender audibly spelled ‘you’re’ wrong makes me fear for the future of this country.” He reached into his school bag and pulled out the book he’d stolen (“borrowed, John. I’ll give it back eventually, I just didn’t check it out”) from the library and began reading. 

“Sherlock,” John said, helplessly, but Sherlock wasn’t listening.

Slowly, the volume in the Great Hall picked up again. John’s stomach turned over and there was a sort of static buzzing in his head. “Right,” he said to no one. He took an empty cup and scooped up some of the ash from Sherlock’s Howler into it.

Sherlock didn’t look up from his book, even when John left the hall.

John was actually quite smart. He came from three generations of Muggles. His great-great-grandmother on his mum’s side had been a wizard and no one had known about it. So when John had manifested his magic, it had been something of a surprise for everyone. He thought that he’d like to study to be a Healer, but he also took summer classes so he could take his GCSEs, and A-levels because John also wanted to go to med school. So far he had eight A-stars and four As in his GCSEs and his wizarding exams yielded about the same results. So yeah, maybe he wasn't at Sherlock's genius level, but he was pretty damn smart. He was also stubborn.

Sure enough the anon Howlers were banned. And as most people could have predicted this did not stop someone or several someones from sending Sherlock a barrage of awful messages. For a while Sherlock weathered it with as much dignity as he could but after a succession of Howlers telling him to kill himself, that he was stupid, and annoying, ugly, and disliked, Sherlock eventually stopped coming to the Great Hall. He would take the Howlers out by the Whomping Willow and listen to them there. Alone.

It took a few weeks of this before John finally dragged Sherlock to the hall for breakfast. Neither of them said much about it, but John wiped his sweating palms on his robes and prayed for luck and courage.

When a Howler dropped into Sherlock’s lap, he looked betrayed before covering it quickly with a disdainful sneer. “Really, John,” he said. “I’d rather have this done with in private. No need to subject everyone else to it.”

John’s fingers went white around his cutlery as Sherlock opened the Howler. 

“SHERLOCK HOLMES DON’T YOU LISTEN TO THEM,” Molly Hooper’s usually quiet voice shouted out. “YOU ARE LOVELY AND NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO SAY OTHERWISE!”

Sherlock’s face was devoid of expression. The Howler, however, wasn’t done. This time it was a male voice.

“YOU’RE A PAIN IN MY – GREG YOU CAN’T SAY THAT – YOU’RE A PAIN BUT YOU’RE STILL MY MATE SO DON’T LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN!”

And then another voice.

“YOU PROBABLY DON’T REMEMBER ME BUT YOU FOUND MY MISSING NECKLACE AND I’LL NEVER FORGET THAT!”

And another.

“YOU REALIZED I HAD A NUT ALLERGY BEFORE IT COULD KILL ME!  
“SHERLOCK HOLMES FOUND OUT WHO KILLED MY COUSIN!  
“I WOULDN’T’VE PASSED POTIONS WITHOUT SHERLOCK AS A STUDY PARTNER!  
“YOU SAVED MY SQUIB SISTER FROM HER STALKER!  
“YOU’RE MENTAL BUT YOU’RE VERY PRETTY!”

“Lestrade,” Sherlock muttered. “Kels. Evans, Yassin, Brown, Lee, Donovan.”

John took a deep breath and stood up. The others who he’d recruited, different years, different houses got to their feet as well. He stepped up onto the long bench and then up onto the table. Sherlock stared up at him, mouth agape, as the Howler geared up for the last time.

“SHERLOCK HOLMES!” John’s voice shouted out of the letter. “YOU’RE CLUELESS, I SWEAR, BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED THAT YOU DO HAVE FRIENDS, THAT PEOPLE DO LIKE YOU, AND THAT IF YOU KILLED YOURSELF A LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD BE VERY SAD. IF YOU KILL YOURSELF I WILL PERSONALLY DRAG YOU BACK HERE AND GIVE YOU A KICKING. 

“ALSO, THE YULE BALL IS COMING UP AND I DON’T KNOW – I MEAN, YOU SAID IT WASN’T YOUR AREA BUT – SHIT THIS ISN’T COMING OUT RIGHT. SHERLOCK HOLMES WOULD YOU BE MY DATE?”

“Watson, you will get down from there right this instant!” one of the Professors said.

“ALSO, I USED YOUR STUPID MONOGRAPH AND WORKED OUT THAT ANDERSON AND HIS CRONIES ARE THE ONES SENDING YOU THE HATE MAIL. SO…YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT THAT ASH THING. ER…I GUESS I’M DONE NOW.”

The Howler burst into flame and the ash fluttered down onto the table by John’s feet.

John grinned, half elated, half terrified, down at Sherlock. “So?” he said. “How about it?”

“I…” Then Sherlock’s face creased into a goofy, delighted smile and he got up onto the bench so he and John were about the same height. “YOU’RE AN IDIOT,” Sherlock half-shouted, half-laughed. “WE’RE BOTH GETTING DETENTION NOW AND WE’LL HAVE TO DO IT WITH ANDERSON!” Then, his face a rather fetching shade of embarrassed pink, he leaned in and pecked John on the mouth.

“You’ll have to learn to dance,” Sherlock said in a much quieter voice, long fingers brushing against the back of John’s hand. “But otherwise, yes.” And then he made a sound that he would later deny was a squeak when John caught hold of his robes and snogged him properly in front of everyone.

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes about Sherlock’s monograph come from ACD. Based on the idea floating around the internet that Howlers could be used for good.
> 
> I deliberately didn't make mention of what House/s the boys were in so you can imagine your own personal head-canon :)


End file.
